*** /dev/xvda1 will be checked for errors at next reboot ***

After proceeding to do a fsck and restarting, the message still kept appearing. After some debugging with wk, it apparently was due to a stale fsck-at-reboot file left around causing the message to keep popping up.

Here are the steps I used to make sure they stopped popping up again:

sudo touch /forcefsck
sudo shutdown -r now
sudo rm /var/lib/update-notifier/fsck-at-reboot
cd /usr/lib/update-notifier/
sudo ./update-motd-fsck-at-reboot
sudo rm /forcefsck

Thanks wk!

• Download the following from here.

mysql-common_5.5.13-2_all.deb
libmysqlclient18_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
libmysqlclient-dev_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
mysql-client-5.5_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
libmysqld-dev_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
libmysqld-pic_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
mysql-server-core-5.5_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
mysql-server-5.5_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb

• Run the following to remove older versions of MySQL client/server:

sudo aptitude remove mysql-client mysql-client-5.1 mysql-client-core-5.1 mysql-common mysql-server mysql-server-5.1 mysql-server-core-5.1

• From the directory you downloaded the files above to:

sudo aptitude install libmysqld-dev
sudo dpkg -i mysql-common_5.5.13-2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i libmysqlclient18_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
sudo aptitude install zlib1g-dev
sudo dpkg -i libmysqlclient-dev_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
sudo aptitude install libdbi-perl libdbd-mysql-perl
sudo dpkg -i mysql-client-5.5_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libmysqld-dev_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libmysqld-pic_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i mysql-server-core-5.5_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i mysql-server-5.5_5.5.13-2_amd64.deb

Took me awhile of messing around to get the sequence right, hope this helps!

Reference/links from blog post/comments here.

While on the subject of Firefox 3, BBspot has an article on it here. And before you go about saying ‘about time!’, BBspot is a satire news site. :P

Without going into the debate of full vs. partial feeds (I’m on the full feeds side though ;)), there’s a WordPress plugin which does not require any additional configuration apart from just dropping it into your WordPress’s plugins directory and activating it. Get it from here.

Since I got sick of getting the incessant email notifications of spam held in moderation queue, I decided to go looking around for fixes and came across this at WordPress’s Codex which helped cut down the crazy amount of spam that kept going through by heaps. Basically it adds rules to the .htaccess file which will check that any comments being submitted to wp-comments-post.php come from the comments page of the WordPress installation and not directly injected by spam bots.

Note that this did not stop the spam completely, but managed to reduce the volume enough so that Akismet could block it off appropriately.

If you’re encountering the same issue as I did, try it out. The instructions are fairly simple and requires few modifications. :)

Get the latest zip or tar.gz from here, or if you want just the changes files and/or diff, have a look here.

Fortunately, it’s a rather easy to get around this, which is just to select and install the appropriate dictionary from here. Once that’s done, just right-click on any text box/field/form and you should be able to select the dictionary you want to use (screenshot below):

Once that’s done, you’re all set! :)

I usually use the shortcut keys ALT+I, ALT+B rather frequently at a forum I visit to get highlighted text in the post box to be italicised or bolded, but in Firefox 2, this shortcut keys no longer work by default. You now have to add the SHIFT key into the mix, so it goes ALT+SHIFT+I instead. If you don’t want to use the SHIFT key, you can edit two values in about:config (like for the close tab button previously):

Change:
ui.key.chromeAccess to 5
ui.key.contentAccess to 4

Taken from MozillaZine forum.

As for other about:config tweaks, head over to this page and for other Firefox tweaks, check this guide out. ;)